COVID-19 and Testing in the US: Moving Forward

Current global pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has imposed an invincible threat to the world economy especially in US, challenging all researchers and government officials and leaving frontline health workers at high risk. The virus has spread its tentacles to every corner and has not shown any indication of reducing. There is an immediate need of developing an effective measure to contain the disastrous virus outbreak. Many researchers are fighting against time and several trials are ongoing for the identification of an effective drug. So far there are 300 active clinical trials that are registered for the containment of the virus.

Testing in U.S

“In addition to 10 other nations, including India, the United States performed further studies for the latest coronavirus pandemic. Everywhere in the world, this is a record. The most studies possible is in France, the UK, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Austria, Australia, Sweden and Canada than all these countries in combination.”

- President Donald Trump

The USA has made balanced progress and has carried out 4.18 million tests in its fight against the pandemic. Still the potential to move forward depends upon the intensity of testing. The most important tool in the fight against COVID-19 is PCR testing to detect people infected with virus which is otherwise impossible to manage. Testing is a critical tool in order to detect the person who is infected with the virus and help in prevention of its spread. However, it is an enormous task to carry out testing of the entire population but still U.S is continuously in a race to provide more and better testing facilities. According to a study by Fatpos Global, two-fifth of the infected people in U.S.A did not show any sign of symptoms or just had mild fever, if any. In such cases, serological testing is the only solution to help detect the virus. It is applied to the cases where the patients had no signs or symptoms of the disease.

Source: Johns Hopkins University and Medicine

Covid-19 testing resulted in the following numbers of positive cases in the nation amidst April and August. Rise in the number of positive cases can be observed from 25,773 in April to 61,076 in August respectively.

Future Analysis: The way forward

In a scenario where the entire world is safeguarding itself under the roof of their houses, it is critically important to carry out testing and allow people who are not infected to carry out important tasks and help boost the economy by getting important services running. As the country is moving towards the reopening phase, it is of great importance to recognize that the virus will attain its peak several times as more and more people are discharged from the hospitals until a potential drug is developed. Testing is only one way to detect the spreading virus but is not sufficient to contain it. It makes it possible to detect the multiplying capacity of the virus within the body of the patients and determine whether the patient needs an ICU facility.

A return to pre-pandemic conditions would only lead to strained hospital systems with limited access to the hospital services for critical cases which will further surge the reporting cases and deaths related to it. It is possible that the authorities will relax some restrictions regarding isolation and showdowns in order to continue to manage the economic conditions in the foreseeable future. Testing plays a key role in transferring the patients to hospitals before they are critically ill and therefore a balanced utilization of resources is possible.